Ok, I think I decided to go with a laptop and an external drive for back up... for now.

There are way to many media managing options for a desktop that I can't even take advantage of yet s0 I decided to hold off and save the money.

On an unrelated note we were upgraded to Office 07 at work and I am not digging it.

Once you get the hang of it it's actually really great. It takes a bit to get into the mindset but once you do, there's a lot less digging through menus to be done, much more stuff right at your fingertips.

Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux are the two main OS'es of the Nuclear Muffin Test Kitchen now. I've also (still) got the Amiga 4000T running AmigaOS 4.

But... but... but... I know where everything was in Office 03.

I suppose I should actually play with it before making a judgment. It's been so slammed that I downloaded it and haven't had a chance to mess around with it.

I'm embarrassingly out of date with the new hardware. I'm looking at something like this Dell Studio XPS 13.

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P7450 (3MB cache/2.13GHz/1066Mhz FSB)
• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
• Edge-to-Edge 13.3" HD WXGA LCD with 2.0 Megapixel Camera
• 8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
• 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1067MHz (2 Dimms)
• 500GB1 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
• NVIDIA® GeForce® 9500M - 256MB
• High Definition Audio 2.0
• Dell Wireless 1510 802.11n Half Mini-Card
• 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

(there is a processor upgrade to an 8400. Worth it?)

Thoughts?

I, too, am completely out of touch with actual hardware specs these days. The last new computer I bought was Jennifer's Mac Mini earlier this year, and I just bought the midrange model and upgraded the RAM myself. Before that it was my MacBook Pro, where I bought the midrange model and upgraded the RAM myself...

It's insanely difficult to interpret hardware specs these days. There are so many different types of processor technology that two processors can have wildly different speed ratings, yet the "slower" one could actually be the better performing chip, depending on whether it's multi-core, hpyerthreaded, what the bus speeds are, etc. etc. etc. There is simply no way anymore to make direct stats comparisons between system configs.

However, the flip side of that is that it no longer matters as much anymore. It's my perception that a couple years ago, hardware finally started to outpace software in growth. Meaning that (for the most part), as long as you're not getting the lowest of the lowest end and as long as you're not going to be a power gamer or looking for top-end multimedia performance, you're hard pressed to find a system that can't handle your every day requirements. As long as you've got at least 4GB of RAM and a decent sized hard drive, you're probably good to go.

And that's what I told my parents, who don't do much more than check email and go out to the internet once in awhile.

But me, I have the IT curse. I want better, bigger, faster, more, Hasbro's Best Thing Ever! even if I don't need it.

So I'll go with the mantra "everything is faster than what I have now, make sure I have enough HD space and I'll be good to go".

Thanks!